In this Society for Human Resource Management article, Brown Executive Master Faculty Member Deborah Hurley discusses obstacles to gender diversity in today’s high-growth STEM sectors, including cybersecurity. According to Hurley, the problem starts because women self-select out of math and science professions by middle school. Said Hurley,

“The situation assumes disastrous proportions when you consider that, by self-selecting out of science and technology, women have closed themselves off from the biggest engines of wealth creation in our era.”

Noting the minuscule percentage of women working in Silicon Valley, she continued,

“The women who do go into science and technology fields encounter a virtually all-male environment or a cliff of discrimination… Some women drop out. Others hang in there but do not receive the same recognition, training or opportunities as their male colleagues.”